mortgage applications

"All we're saying is, this is what the data show: Female applicants are less likely to get loans originated than male applicants," lead researcher Spencer Cowan told the Chicago Tribune. "We don't have basic underwriting criteria … we don't have the value of the property or any credit score range or debt-to-income ratio.”

A new report by the Woodstock Institute found that women in the Chicago area are more likely to be turned down for mortgages than men.

The study looked at data from more than 211,000 applicants for home purchase loans in the six counties around Chicago, including Cook, and found that female applicants were 14.5 percent less-likely to have their loan application approved. And a woman whose name was first on a joint application was 28.3 percent less-likely to receive a loan than a man applying alone.

Could banks be discriminating against women in one of the largest U.S. cities? According to a report from the Woodstock Institute, a non-profit advocacy group, men in Chicago are far more likely to receive mortgages than women. The study analyzed 211,000 home purchase loan applications and almost 563,000 applications for mortgage refinancing between 2011 and 2013, with controls included for applicants' income and the size of the loan sought. Female applicants were 14.5 percent less likely to receive a home purchase loan.